Recycling serves an important dual purpose in our world: It is both environmentally conservative, and economically conservative. In the preservation of our environment and ecology, the recycling of metals is critical to sustaining the unsustainable resources for metals. The recycling of ferrous metals, steel, stainless steel, and iron, is advantageous because the ferrous metals have unique recyclable properties that make the metal easy to recycle. The process of recycling also lessens the impact on the environment; by recycling the metal versus generating new ferrous metal ore, energy is conserved. In the preservation of our economics, the advantage to recycling ferrous metals is that there is enough energy saved to make a difference worldwide. By recycling steel there is enough energy saved to power 18 million homes (BIR). Because there is an economic and environmental advantage to recycling ferrous metals, it is necessary to continue doing so, and possibly increase our use of recycled steel, stainless steel, and iron.
The difference between recycling ferrous metals and nonferrous metals is found in the defining difference between the two metal types: The magnetic qualities. Because of ferrous metals magnetic qualities, it is easier to sort than any other type of metal. It can stick to a large magnet as all other material will fall away. Additionally, ferrous metals do not lose any of their properties when being recycled, so the recycled metal is the same as a virgin metal: “Steel is ideal for recycling because it does not lose any of its inherent physical properties during the process, which can be repeated ad infinitum” (BIR). This means that not only does recycling not affect the integrity of the ferrous metal, but it does not matter how many times the metal is recycled, it never loses its properties. Some of the other metals, the nonferrous metals do lose a percentage of their properties in the recycling process. Other metals cannot be separated with a magnet and require manual separation. Even the shredding process is facilitated by the magnet as shredders will use rotating magnets to get the iron and steel out of a mixture of other metals (BIR). The nonferrous metals can be sorted away from the ferrous metal at this pint as well, with the ferrous metals providing an advantage that separates both metals from each other.
One should consider that even if the recycled ferrous metal were not the same as virgin metal, it causes less environmental damage than ore extraction for the metal: “Compared to ore extraction, the use of secondary ferrous metals significantly reduces CO2 emissions, energy and water consumption and air pollution. At the same time, the recycling of steel makes more efficient use of the earth’s natural resources” (BIR). However, the metal is not at all compromised, therefore, it only makes sense to have the same product at less cost to our environment. Plus, geologically, there is a limited amount of metals that are available to us. The process of ore extraction is not forever sustainable and we must recycle the valuable resources in order to protect them. Steel manufacturing reached 1.3 billion tons in 2008, and out of that over 500 million tons were made from scrap steel (BIR). If one is wondering where the steel comes from that gets recycled, it is usually “end of the life” products like cars, machinery, appliances, and other bulk type construction metals (BIR).
There are many benefits to recycling steel and iron. One such secondary benefit of recycling steel and iron is that it is less expensive to actually recycle ferrous metal. The procedure is simplified and saves money in the recycling procedure because of the metal’s magnetic qualities. The economic benefits to recycling steel help make the most of the industry’s resources. And the environmental benefits are many: Not only are unsustainable resources preserved, but less energy is expended in the recycling effort than the ore generation effort. The benefit of having the same end-product, say steel, that is the same quality whether it is recycled or not, makes the recycled steel more valuable. Recycled steel does not deplete energy and natural resources. These qualities make recycling economically and environmentally necessary.
Statistically, recycled steel account for nearly 40% of the world’s steel (BIR). And the breakdown for the amount of metals that we recycle in comparison to other metals is as follows: “The United States recycles 150 million metric tons of scrap materials annually…85 million tons of iron and steel, 5.5 million tons of aluminum, 1.8 million tons of copper, 2 million tons of stainless steel, 1.2 million tons of lead and 420,000 tons of zinc…” (West). Out of all that recycled metal, most is ferrous. The energy savings of mining the ore, or recycling the scrap is huge, and even more so for nonferrous metals. All metals are more easily recycled that generated as ore. The energy savings for recycling steel is 56% less than what it would take to mine the ore. Additionally, the energy savings that are generated from recycling copper or aluminum is around 90% (West). There are differences between ferrous and nonferrous metals that make ferrous metals easier to recycle. Furthermore, the recycling process itself generates less environmental harm than going out to mine more metal ore. Recycling of all metals, both ferrous and nonferrous, is a critical process that saves our environment and promotes a better economy.
- Bureau of International Recycling (BIR). “Ferrous Metals”, 2016, http://www.bir.org/industry/ferrous-metals/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2016.
- West, Larry. “The Benefits of Metal Recycling.” About.com, 27 Jan. 2016, http://environment.about.com/od/recycling/a/metal-recycling.htm. Accessed 30 Nov. 2016.
